Senior minister Grant Shapps has been told off for posting a series of cheerful videos to social media site TikTok.
Shapps, who is the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, has been posting a series of fun videos, one copying American Psycho, and another featuring an “elf on the shelf”. We’re told people in his office find it a “bit cringe” but don’t mind too much.
But senior Tory Sir Iain Duncan Smith claims that TikTok is a “security threat” because of links to China. Sir Iain called the platform a “data harvester” that could be accessed by the Chinese security services to “compromise” users in future. “Grant Shapps of all people should understand that,” he told us. Parliament has deleted its account.
Last week, Shapps praised TikTok, calling it “social media on crack”. He has said he will not be “chased off” the platform, where he has almost 15,000 followers.
Chill out on the method acting, says Cox
Actor Brian Cox doesn’t like his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong’s method acting, calling it “f***ing annoying”. In a sweary rant during an interview with Town and Country magazine which channeled his own media mogul character Logan Roy, Cox admitted Strong is “f***ing talented”. “When you’ve got the gift, celebrate it,” he says. “Go back to your trailer and have a hit of marijuana, you know?” Different strokes for different folks.
Braverman leak mystery
Suella Braverman ally Esther McVey asked a critical question about Home Office civil servant Matthew Rycroft at PMQs yesterday, as a leaked memo showed migrant crossings were not deemed a top priority. Home Secretary Braverman nodded along. Who could have done the leaking? Last year, Braverman got the nickname “Leaky Sue” after sending an official document to a backbencher. Cui bono?
Suki’s musical odyssey
MODEL and actor Suki Waterhouse says playing a keyboardist in the new rock show Daisy Jones & The Six led to the launch of her own musical career. The cast spent “three months becoming a band,” Waterhouse said at a Q&A at the Soho Hotel, with “the job of actually learning how to play our instruments”. The process “encouraged me to make my first record”, which came out last year. Sweet music, indeed.
Warriors come to capital
The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal brought a troop of warriors from his Star Wars spin-off TV series The Mandalorian to London yesterday. At Curzon Soho, Stath Lets Flats star Jamie Demetriou and Ghosts actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe were at a screening of Demetriou’s comedy special. Down the road, creative Tunde Ogunsina and actor Ellen Francis Gibbons went to the launch of restaurant Kapara.
